Twice a year for more than two decades, Joplin, Mo., has marked the final stop for Michelle Foley’s family on the way to Oklahoma. This year, the stop will take on a whole different meaning.

The tornado that ravaged the town Sunday killed at least 126 people. One day after the twister, Foley of Washington called the number listed on a Facebook relief effort page to see how she could help.

Now she is organizing a collection of central Illinois donations, including food, money and cards written by children for the victims, to offer Joplin when her family drives there June 21.

“What they need in three weeks is cleanup — cleanup help, rebuilding help, getting people back into their homes,” said Foley, who stops at Joplin before visiting relatives in Oklahoma.

Foley has created her own Facebook page to collect donations of goods and money through Creve Coeur Christian Church. She’s receiving three to four calls an hour from people wanting to send donations, which Foley plans to pack into a U-Haul truck.

She is admittedly nervous that her family’s three-day stop in Joplin could traumatize her four children, who are 10 years old or younger, she said. But one of her son’s exact words when she told him about the trip were, “Let’s go.”

“I want them to see how you can have everything in a minute, you can have it all,” she said. “You can have your Xboxes, your bikes and everything. And then it’s gone.”

Students at Central Primary School in Washington started drawing cards and writing letters for the tornado victims on Thursday, the same day Foley called Principal Molly Kosbab with the idea. The students, who are in kindergarten through third grade, will finish the cards Tuesday.

They are scared of bad weather after seeing the Joplin devastation, Kosbab said, and they recognize even at their age that some Joplin children are without homes and schools.

Children in Joplin are seeking items like toys and letters that can restore their comfort, said Genevieve Williams, 23, who started a Facebook page called Joplin Tornado Info an hour after the tornado. Foley contacted Williams, who lives 10 miles south of Joplin, to see how she could help.

“We can’t give them their lives back right now, but we can give them a little piece of their new life,” Williams said.

Germantown Hills resident Brandon Durham drove Monday to Joplin, his hometown of 23 years and where 12 of his relatives live.

Durham said he didn’t know what his reaction would be to seeing the destruction in person. This week, he found out.

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“It’s just amazement,” he said, “that anything like this could really happen.”